CPP says it has uncovered attempts to destabilise its new leadership

Accra, Nov. 25, GNA – The Convention Peoples Party (CPP) said on Friday that it has uncovered a grand plot to use the fractional demand for early congress to undermine and destabilize the new leadership under Ms Yaaba Samia Nkrumah.

“The leadership has uncovered a nefarious machination of certain faceless party members with outside collaborators to pull together signatures from a section of the party members across the country to force the leadership to organise an early congress.

“Constituency and regional executives have been approached by the group to sign a petition which will also compel the National leadership to hold an extra-ordinary session to fix the National Delegates Congress before the close of the month to elect a flag bearer,” Lawyer Bright Akwetey, CPP Legal Advisor told the Ghana News Agency in an interview.

The party called on all loyal CPP members including Constituency and Regional Executives to close their ranks and ignore such petitions. “You should ignore such dubious characters with questionable loyalty to the party whose only objective is to destabilise the party for personal gains”.

Mr Akwetey said the current leadership was entangled with a major challenge of reorganising the party structures for Elections 2012.

He cautioned members to be mindful of individuals and groups who were using the party for their personal interest. “They are out to use CPP to promote their personal interest to the detriment of the collective interest of the rank and file.

“All loyal leaders of the party at the Constituency, Regional and National levels should unite firmly behind the current leadership to manage the affairs of the party...what they need now is support and not attack”.

On the legality of fixing a National Delegates Congress to elect a flag bearer in 2012, Mr Akwetey noted: “The previous leadership under Mr Ladi Nylander originally fixed six-month interval between the Election of National Leaders and the holding of primaries for election of a flag bearer.

“Unfortunately, due to operational hiccups the congress was change several times from April until finally it came on in September; the current leadership has been in office barely two months...we cannot blame them for the inability of the party to organise a congress to elect a flag bearer this year.

“If the party was patient enough for the Nylander administration to postpone the National Delegates Congress to elect National Leaders from April to September, they should exercise the same restraint for the current leadership”.

Mr Akwetey called for unity from all loyal members of the party as the new leadership re-organised its structures for both the presidential and parliamentary elections next year.

The CPP Legal Advisor said the party frowned on disunity and bickering within its ranks and appealed to the leading members of the party with noble ideas and innovations to join the new leadership to revive the fortunes of the CPP.

“If we want to organise the party, we must all forget about our personal ambitions and come together and plan a way for the progress of the party…which I strongly stand for,” he said.

He said without strengthening the structures at the grassroots there would be no meaningful development within the party and emphasised the need to repackage the ideals and ideology of the party to make it more relevant to modern Ghanaian politics.